Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I think you just have to be yourself instead of catering your sound to a specific audience, make the music you want to make, and the audience will find you.
In hindsight, I think my manager and I both knew that 'Someone You Loved' was a special song that we had to put out. But no one was expecting it to do so well.
The first artist whose music I really got into was Paolo Nutini. When his album 'Sunny Side Up' came out, I think I listened to it on repeat for, like, six months.
I think the first thing you release should come from you. If you want your first piece to be exactly how you want it to be, and how you see it, you should release it yourself.
A lot of people say that 'the best songs fall into your lap' and that they're the easiest ones to write and take the shortest amount of time: I wholeheartedly disagree with that.
I had gigged so much from the age of 11 to 20 that I got to a stage where I actually got less nervous the bigger the gig. But you need those butterflies: they make you feel alive.
I never thought I'd get to the point where I'd be able to release a proper album, and I absolutely never thought that when I did, I would give it a name as stupid I have, but here we are.
When I was, like, 17 or 18 and didn't really have anything I needed to buy, we would do these pub gigs for some cash and would usually just spend our wage back in the pub immediately after.
I started off playing my own songs, just because I saw it as a means to an end almost of, 'Right, if you want to play gigs, you have to write your own songs.' I mean, they were absolutely terrible.
Whether it's a song that might deviate from an artists' usual sound or even if it's still very much in their world, I think the more people opening themselves up creatively to collaborate with others, the better.
Everyone always tells you about how amazing recording their first album was and how they'll always look back on the 'process' with fond memories. I will look back on it as an extremely stressful time that somehow also managed to be extremely boring.
I have been gigging around Glasgow and Edinburgh since I was 12. I played in pubs at that age, even though I obviously was too young to be in them. So I used to hide in bathrooms, come out and play my set, then get the hell out as quickly as possible.
I don't blame people or 'pop stars' or whatever for being so quiet, but you can't take it too seriously, especially on social media. It's a very hard thing to be yourself, especially when people are watching, so I don't blame them for being a bit reserved.
I remember hearing people like Joe Cocker, Fleetwood Mac, and Elvis. My parents were big fans of them, and they were the early seeds. My brother was more into Slipknot, and I still listen to them, too, but it wasn't until I listened to Paolo Nutini that it really clicked.
When I was about 9, my brother, who's six years older than me, started getting guitar lessons, and I wouldn't say that it inspired me to pick up an instrument: it was more me being like, 'Well, if he's getting guitar lessons, then so am I. I'm not missing out,' type of thing.
I was doing a wee gig at the Edinburgh Fringe, and while I was walking down to the show from the train station, someone stopped and asked if they could get a picture with me. This was about six months before I released my first single as well, so my response was, 'Are you sure?'
When I first started out, they were like, 'Is there anybody that you like that you want to work with, and we'll see what we can do?' And I went, 'I like Malay,' who's Frank Ocean's producer, and they were like, 'Not going to happen.' It did seem so, like, high-in-the-sky sort of thing, do you know what I mean? It still does, that it happened.